God and Godhead in Mystical Experience

[Windwalker]

There seems some points of distinction worth noting in the use of these terms, within the context of mystical experience. It was pointed out that historically in the Christian church to get away from the baggage of the term "God" which traditionally carries with it the "personal" form of the divine, often in anthropomorphic terms, the term Godhead moves beyond that to speak of the "impersonal" nature of the divine to get away from the notions of gods, or "three gods" in relation to the Triune-nature of God found in Christian theology. The question is can mystical experience be that of Godhead, the impersonal, or can it be of God, as the personal, or can it be both the personal and the impersonal?

Is mystical experience only that of the causal state, the impersonal godhead, or Nirguna Brahman, "God without qualities or attributes", or can it be the high-subtle state, with the personal, "God", or Saguna Brahman, "God with qualities". I see both as aspects of the same overall God or Brahman. God, with a capital God denotes the highest form or expression of the Infinite formless Godhead. It is the "Face" upon the Infinite, as I like to put it. It is the Christ, Logos, OM, etc, or "God manifesting".

As that God, or Face of the Infinite is further broken down into individual attributes, this is where the gods, small g, come into play. They are all God, or expressions of the divine, in high forms, mediating as it were between human experience and that of the Absolute itself. Each of these can, in mystical experiences, in states of deity mysticism, open one up to the Divine in themselves through these divine projections. In the low-causal state, you encounter the One, that Face of the Infinite in form coming forth out of the Formless, or "Godhead". In high-causal states, you enter into the Formless, or Godhead, Nirguna Brahman.

Is there a valid concern about using the word God then for mystics, which can in fact speak of valid mystical experience, because of others who are not mystics might translate the meaning of this into the anthropomorphic images of their mythologies? Should a mystic use other terms because non-mystics might not understand them in that context? If so, then can any words a mystic uses begin to convey the meaning of mystical experience at all, since without the context of experience itself, anything will be translated down into their current context regardless of that? In other words, are we giving away the power of words to those who don't have the necessary context where any words used will convey something that can't be understood conceptually to begin with?

My thoughts are that the words are fine, but have to be qualified as such. "You have heard it said... but I say unto you", takes the familiar and expands the meaning of them, opening the mind to seeing beyond its understandings and definitions of these terms. Or should we instead find different words that are "free" of earlier connotations and hope that these will be new "definitions" that convey meaning without that mystical experience that provides the context for the meanings themselves? I can't see any words not being misunderstood, actually. So why not say God, but qualify the meaning within the context of mystical experience, rather than the context of a dualistic god?

 

[sun rise]

I can't see any words not being misunderstood, actually. So why not say God, but qualify the meaning within the context of mystical experience, rather than the context of a dualistic god?

I see it that way as well.

 

[SalixIncendium]

Is there a valid concern about using the word God then for mystics, which can in fact speak of valid mystical experience, because of others who are not mystics might translate the meaning of this into the anthropomorphic images of their mythologies? Should a mystic use other terms because non-mystics might not understand them in that context?

If the mystic is speaking in the company of other mystics, probably not. But if the mystic is speaking in the company of those who have not had such experiences, or what you term "non-mystics," the use of the term can certainly be problematic.

 

[Windwalker]

If the mystic is speaking in the company of other mystics, probably not. But if the mystic is speaking in the company of those who have not had such experiences, or what you term "non-mystics," the use of the term can certainly be problematic.

In what way? I've been of the mind to use it as common word which has at its highest end a mystical meaning. God is, in their eyes, transcendent to all of Creation. To speak with that common frame of reference, to then speak of the ineffable, itself goes beyond tribal definitions. The ineffable is something most people in some small fashion or another have experienced, even if just the still of a calm evening.

Are you saying that the other baggage overtakes that and consumes the word God with religious trappings? Would that be to say then that the word God has no ineffable qualities to it in their minds?

 

[SalixIncendium]

In what way? I've been of the mind to use it as common word which has at its highest end a mystical meaning. God is, in their eyes, transcendent to all of Creation. To speak with that common frame of reference, to then speak of the ineffable, itself goes beyond tribal definitions. The ineffable is something most people in some small fashion or another have experienced, even if just the still of a calm evening.

Are you saying that the other baggage overtakes that and consumes the word God with religious trappings? Would that be to say then that the word God has no ineffable qualities to it in their minds?

While most people may have experienced something ineffable, I would guess that the majority would not describe their perception of God as ineffable based on the religious people here and IRL that I've encountered. Many will tell you a great deal about their God, not because of what they've experienced, but because of what they've been told or what they've read.

But rather than both of us speculating on this here, let's create a thread polling people to see if they feel their God has ineffable qualities.

What Can You Tell Me About God?

 

[Windwalker]

While most people may have experienced something ineffable, I would guess that the majority would not describe their perception of God as ineffable based on the religious people here and IRL that I've encountered. Many will tell you a great deal about their God, not because of what they've experienced, but because of what they've been told or what they've read.

Yes, this is probably true. And while people may have experienced the Divine in some measure or another as it moved their souls, they may not associate that with the God they are taught about, inasmuch as in many of the mind of theists, God is taught to be wholly transcendent, and the experience of the ineffable is quite immanent, here, not "up there" or outside themselves somewhere.

God as an "all-powerful guy in the sky", a heavenly potentate of sorts, is generally not associated with the experience of Divine intimacy to the average person who sees themselves quite separate from God, which defines probably the majority of Christians in the West, as traditional theism leans towards the radically dualistic mindset , which you also see in its younger family siblings neo-atheism and scientism.

As difficult as it is for me to think of God in those terms, I have as you said, read people's descriptions of the experience of God here on RF which basically amounts to looking for signs of the miraculous or supernatural, with mental conclusions, "That had to be God. You can't explain the coincidence any other way", sort of deducings. For the mystic, there is none of that. There is no question or doubt at all, but a profound and deep knowing, like knowing that was a glass of cold water you just quench your thirst with. You whole being knows its reality. To the non-mystic, such moments of the Divine Reality breaking through into their minds, becomes translated into magical terms of supernatural agents miraculously breaking through that radical dualist separate of God and man, and the whole affair remains externalized to themselves because of how their minds have dualistic framework to translate them through.

Still, nonetheless, even so that in their imaginations about something that is yet beyond their own experiences, to speak of God as both wholly transcendent and wholly immanent, points a finger to the Divine Reality for them, that when, such an experience overtakes them, God becomes more than just a symbol into a actual reality which is part of themselves. As such it becomes a valid language or symbol to talk about this with, or to relate it to others with. And having a useful language is in fact helpful, so long as one holds the understandings of the mind lightly as "fingers pointing to the moon".

A major problem for the spiritual aspirant, is when there is no roadmap or any way to begin to talk about the experience. While a practice of negation (the apophatic approach) helps to get beyond these definitions in order to set free the Ineffable to present itself as is to the mind emptied of its preconditioned concepts and expectations, the mind still must have some way to talk to itself about it as part of a path of integration. What was once seen as a concrete definition, "God as a person", is now recognized as a symbolic image of that which cannot be defined. So "God beyond God" begins to make sense, because there is experience to illuminate the meaning of the words with.

Without experience, the words are definitions. With experience, they are symbolic. But without anything at all, no finger pointing to the moon, no roadmap to point the soul beyond the ego into the depths of the Divine, the aspirant may flounder deaf, dumb, and blind, feeling and stumbling about in a dark room hoping this object here or that object there may give them some point of reference to try to navigate their way out of that dark room into the Light they intuit in the cracks of their soul beyond it.

So, I guess in my estimation, to take the familiar, and frankly good word to describe the Divine Reality with, "God", and speak of it, not in terms of the Ultimate Potentate, but rather as the Ground of all Being and the Source of Life which flows forth from the Eternal into all that is, into our own being and experience of reality, elevates the meaning and depth of that symbol beyond that of the spiritual child's imagination to that of a spiritual adult's reality. To avoid using that word when speaking of mystical experience, fails to allow that word to be more than just "King Jesus" in their minds, and fails them spiritually when they are ready to move from childhood into adult life spiritually.

With nothing, with no counter balance, with no words at all, then you probably will end of with a case of someone on their spiritual path as they awaken to the rational, angrily throwing the baby out along with the bathwater. You end up with the neo-atheist screaming, "Woo! It's all BS!", because the understanding of the spiritual is being defined by spiritual infants (of which we all are at some point in our lives) in terms of magical fictions, seeing signs from God in the woods, and whatnot.

The understanding of the nature of symbolic representations held at a rational level, allows for the ineffable to have a language, without it becoming a box of theology to place "God" inside of, however tightly defined that box is. As I heard someone say once, when a metaphor becomes a descriptor, it becomes a dead metaphor. I am of the mind that it is better to use it in ways that defy that, explaining in context, and allowing the transcendent nature inherent in the word God, with a capital G pointing to the Divine Reality, to empower that word to actually be useful and helpful in the experience of the Divine, rather than in essence telling them by avoided that word, that God is not real. That "God" is not the Ultimate Reality at all.

The problem with that which I sense, is the same problem the neo-atheist encounters when hoping for the "true believer" to accept the validity of science and rationality. Because they were not able to evolve their understandings of God, which in no small part comes from allowing the word God to be defined as Noah's Ark mythical god, it says to the possible spiritual aspirant that you have to reject God beliefs in order to be rational. It leaves them with two choices, remain a prerational mythic-literal believer, or become an atheist and call the spiritual "woo woo".

That forces someone who might be ready to move beyond early childhood in understanding the nature of Ultimate Reality, to stay where they are if they value the spiritual, or become a rationalist and reject God. Not a true or valid choice at all. And saying to the mystic don't use the word God because others hear that as a god that drops frogs from the sky on the Egyptians, likewise pulls the ladder away from them which they should be building their understandings on, one rung above the next instead.

Sorry for the long-winded and possibly rambling nature of this, as I'm trying to finally put into words what has long stood out to me as inherently problematic in saying we should avoid the word God. I'm of the mind, with good solid rational, and experiential reasons behind why I do not feel it's a good idea to give over the power of words to religious institutions. They do not own God. But in avoiding using that word, we are in fact giving that power away to them to define it and control it as they see fit, making them the authorities, and ourselves as "other" or foreign. To say, "It's not God, it's Brahman" is not inviting. It's makes it "other" or "not this" to any understanding of the Divine they hold, in whatever little light that may be at that point in their path.

Some need it to be an external parent at an early stage, we all did, but then to be told that is all it is and you must now "get rid of God" actually may be throwing a stone in front of their feet to cause them to stumble. Isn't it possibly better to say, "That is one understanding of God, but there is more than that. God is not just "out there", but "in here" as well to help get the ball rolling a little further and help them on their way to the realization of the Oneness of the Divine Reality which is All That Is?

But rather than both of us speculating on this here, let's create a thread polling people to see if they feel their God has ineffable qualities.

What Can You Tell Me About God?

I think that was an excellent idea, and I appreciate your indulgence in me trying to work my way through these thoughts. I do appreciate those who feel it's better to avoid it, and that does have merit, but I think there is more to it than just avoiding it, which has been gnawing at me like a sliver stuck under the surface of the skin. I'm sure if I try, next time I can put this in a couple paragraphs instead.